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Mike Shinoda
Michael Kenji "Mike" Shinoda (born February 11, 1977) is an American musician, record producer, and artist. He is best known as the rapper, principal songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and one of the two vocalists of the rock band Linkin Park. Shinoda is also noted as a solo rapper in his side-project former Fort Minor. He also provides artwork, production, and mixing for both projects. Shinoda has been ranked in the''Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists'' by Hit Parader (#72). Early Life Shinoda was born and raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills. His father is Japanese American and his mother is of European descent. He has a younger brother, Jason. He was raised as a liberal Protestant. Following his mother's wishes, Shinoda began classical piano training lessons around the age of six. His enthusiasm grew eventually. By thirteen, he expressed the desire to move toward playing jazz, blues, and even hip-hop. During his middle school and high school years, he added the guitar and, eventually, rap-style vocals to his repertoire. Following his high school graduation, Mike Shinoda's rap interests found a source of encouragement in Brad Delson, with whom he started to write and record songs in a makeshift studio set up in his bedroom. Shinoda attended Agoura High School with Linkin Park bandmates Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon as well as with members of the band Hoobastank. By the end of high school, Bourdon had become involved in their musical ventures. The trio formed the band Xero, and began to make a more serious attempt to pursue a career in the music industry. After high school, Shinoda enrolled in the Art Center College of Design to study graphic design and illustration. It was here that he made the acquaintance of DJ and turntablist Joseph Hahn, who, along with Delson's college-mate Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, was soon added to Xero's line-up. It was also here that he experienced a form of identity crisis. Years later, in an interview he said: "I think it was probably in college that I realized that there was a difference between Japanese and Japanese-American. That's important to realize. It's not the same thing and then eventually with ''Linkin'' ''Park', I toured in Japan. I've been there now I think four times. I remember the first time I went, how familiar it seemed, just getting out of the plane, it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like ''''Japan'. I don't know if anybody else even noticed it but I walked out of the plane and thought this is definitely familiar to me, didn't even see anything yet. And then going to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, you just recognize things about the way people act, the small things that people do such as how you'll grab a piece of paper. There are things that are more obvious like taking somebody's business card with two hands. You don't do that in the States. When I saw somebody do that I went, "Oh yeah, my uncle always does that," you know. There are little things that culturally come from 'Japan' but they also exist in Japanese American culture and it made me feel like the connection was there and I kind of hadn't realized how much of it was there."'' Shinoda managed to graduate from college with a bachelor's degree in illustration a year in advance, securing himself a job as a graphic designer instantly. With his background as a graphic artist, Shinoda has taken it upon himself in designing all of Linkin Park's artwork with Hahn, and has even designed the album cover for Styles of Beyond's debut album, 2000 Fold. In later years he would go on to showcase his art skills. He had his debut art showcase (Diamonds Spades Hearts & Clubs) at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles in the time leading up to Linkin Park's album Minutes to Midnight. Personal Life Shinoda is a third generation Japanese American. His father was born in the United States and was interned during World War II. In 2009, Shinoda received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (L.H.D) from Art Center College Of Design. EWP honored Shinoda with a Visionary Award and dinner in 2010. Linkin Park Shinoda's band brought in second vocalist Chester Bennington , replacing Mark Wakefield. From the onset, Shinoda was closely involved in the technical aspects of the band's recordings, and over the subsequent releases that role continued to expand. Shinoda, with guitarist Brad Delson, engineered and produced the band's Hybrid Theory EP, and performed similar roles in the recording of the Hybrid Theory album. Mike has contributed to the writing and performance of the guitar on most songs of every Linkin Park record since the beginning, i.e, from Hybrid Theory. Brad Delson and Mike have both contributed to most songs that have guitar. Mike executively organized and oversaw the band's remix album Reanimation (2002), contributing his own production remixes that he made in his home studio for "Crawling" and "Pushing Me Away." In his spare time, he produced and performed on a song by The X-Ecutioners entitled "It's Goin' Down." On the second Linkin Park Warner Bros. studio release Meteora (2003) Shinoda continued to expand upon his duties as a musician and studio technician/engineer. Additionally, for the backbone of the album artwork, Shinoda collaborated with graffiti artist DELTA, graphic designer Frank Maddocks, and band-mate Joe Hahn. By the release of the Linkin Park and Jay-Z 'mash-up' album, Collision Course in 2004, Shinoda's involvement in the creation of the albums continued to grow. He produced and mixed the album, which won a Grammy Award for "best rap / song collaboration" in 2006. The band released their next album, Minutes To Midnight, on May 14, 2007. On this album, Shinoda shared a production credit with producer Rick Rubin, overseeing the musical evolution of the band's sound. This album was also the first time that Shinoda, best known for his rapping, sang a featured vocal. Mike sang in the songs "In Between" and the b-side song, "No Roads Left," as well as rapping and singing in the songs "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High." Despite the rarity of Shinoda-fronted singing tracks, music magazine Hit Parader ranked Mike at number 72 of the Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time. Mike and Rick Rubin again shared a production credit for Linkin Park's fourth album, A Thousand Suns, released on September 14, 2010, and Linkin Park's latest album, Living Things ''released on June 26, 2012. Fort Minor Shinoda formed a side project named "Fort Minor" between 2003 and 2004 because he could not demonstrate as much of his hip-hop background in Linkin Park. He explained the name of his project in an interview: ''" 'Fort' represents the more aggressive side of the music. 'Minor' can mean a few things: if you're talking about music theory, the minor key is darker. I wanted to name the album rather than having my name on the cover, because I want people to focus on the music, not me." The debut album from Fort Minor, titled The Rising Tied, was released on November 13, 2005, and includes guest appearances from Styles of Beyond, Lupe Fiasco, Common, Black Thought of The Roots, John Legend, Holly Brook, Jonah Matranga, Celph Titled, and features Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) as an executive producer. A single was put out by the X-Ecutioners featuring Mike Shinoda, and it was called 'It's Goin Down'. For the NBA 2006–2007 season, "Remember the Name", the second single from The Rising Tied, became the soundtrack for NBA Overtime on TNT. He also scored a Top 10 smash with the surprise hit single "Where'd You Go", which peaked at #4 on BillboardHot 100 chart. According to Shinoda, the song was written about his wife, Anna Hillinger, and how she and the rest of his family must feel when he is away on tour. Shinoda provided several original score selections to the 2005 MTV VMAs. LilJon also provided original music, but not on any of the same tracks. Fort Minor won an MTV VMA for "Best Ringtone" in 2006, and was featured in the following films and TV programs (2005, 2006 and 2010): Entourage, Boston Legal, Gridiron Gang, Freedom Writers, Friday Night Lights (TV), The Karate Kid, and Numbers. Shinoda has also continued his Fort Minor musical style in an executive producer role on the upcoming Styles Of Beyond album, "Reseda Beach" He is contributing music and vocals to the album, which was slated for release sometime in 2009. However, Styles of Beyond went under hiatus, and the album is only now being released in 2012.